Offshore floating structures have been widely discussed in the literatures of the maritime industry. Numerous uses for offshore floating structures such as floating airports, floating wind/solar power plants, floating industrial facilities, floating habitation facilities, etc. have been proposed or discussed. However currently, only the offshore oil and gas industry has widely implemented the use of offshore floating structures. The offshore floating structures in the offshore oil and gas industry are generally in the form of Tension Leg Platform, Semi-submersible platform, Truss Spar platform or Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit.
Other than the FPSO units, which are typically floating structures converted from oil tankers, the other types of floating structures are usually customized platforms specially designed and built for the purpose. Further, these platforms are generally moored to the seabed via complex mooring systems.
Current conventional technology in designing and building offshore floating structures are mostly based on the above customized design concept, where floating structures are designed and built for a specific purpose. However, these custom built structures can be costly and the design may be complex, thus inhibiting the expansion of the usage of offshore floating structures into other areas as discussed in the various literature of the maritime industry. The FPSO design, which only involves the conversion of an oil tanker to a floating structure, can be relatively cheaper and easier to implement. However, a single vessel may not provide sufficient space for the other usages proposed in the literature. Further, a single moored converted vessel may be subject to environmental forces such as wind or tidal currents resulting in the rolling, pitching and yawing of the vessel. This may render the single moored converted vessel unsuitable for the other uses as mentioned above.
A need therefore exist to provide solutions that seek to address at least some of the above problems hindering the expansion of the usage of floating structures in other areas.